The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] The final sections of the Bhagavad Gita are permeated by sentiments and emotions that are imbued with the concepts of sattva, rajas, and tamas. In these final sections of the Bhagavad Gita, one must, as it were, adopt a comprehensive sensibility attuned to perceiving the things one encounters there in terms of the concepts of rajas, sattva, and tamas. In the previous lecture, I attempted to outline these three important concepts more with the aid of contemporary experiences. Of course, anyone who undertakes the study of the Bhagavad Gita and immerses themselves in it must be aware that since the time when the Bhagavad Gita was written, these concepts have shifted somewhat. Nevertheless, it would not have been correct to characterize the concepts of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas purely on the basis of the literal translations of the Bhagavad Gita, for the simple reason that our perceptions differ from those of the past, and one cannot simply adopt those entirely different perceptions. If one were to attempt such a characterization, one would be characterizing the unknown through the unknown.

[ 2 ] Thus, you will find that, with regard to food, for example, the concepts we developed in the previous lecture are somewhat shifted in the Bhagavad Gita, because everything that applies to plant-based food for modern humans applied to that food for the Indians, which Krishna calls the mild, gentle food, whereas the rajasic food—which we characterized as mineral food, as is correct for modern humans—such as salt, which gives the character of rajasic food—was described by the Indians of the Bhagavad Gita era as sour and pungent. And tamasic food is, for our constitution, essentially meat. The Indians used this term to describe food that in our time cannot really be considered food at all, though it does give a good mental image of how different people were back then: the Indians described as tamasic food that which had gone rotten, stale, or stinking. In our present incarnation, we could no longer really call that tamasic food, for the human constitution has changed right down to the physical level.

[ 3 ] To better understand these fundamental concepts of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas in the Bhagavad Gita, we must reflect on how they apply to our own circumstances. And when we then engage with what Sattva actually is, it is best to start with the most obvious definition of Sattva: A Sattva person is one who, in our time, can devote themselves to a realization as vivid as the realization of the mineral kingdom today. For the Indian, a Sattva person was not one who possessed this kind of insight, but rather one who goes through the world with understanding, wise in the ordinary sense, using both head and heart. Someone who takes in, without bias or prejudice, what the phenomena of the world present to him; someone who goes through the world in such a way that he accompanies all his journey through the world with an understanding perception of this world, by taking in the light of concepts and ideas, the light of feelings and sensations, which emanates from all the beauty and splendor of the world; someone who avoids all that is ugly in the world, who educates himself in the right way, someone who does this in relation to the physical world, is a Sattva person. In the inanimate realm, for example, a Sattva impression is the impression of a surface that is not too glaring, illuminated in such a way that it allows us to distinguish the details of the colors in the correct brightness while still being brightly colored. Such a surface would be the Sattva impression of the external world. A Rajas impression is one in which the human being is, in a certain way, hindered—by his own emotions, by his affections and drives, or even by the thing itself—from fully penetrating the thing, into what surrounds him, so that he does not enter into the impression but confronts it with what he is. For example, they become acquainted with the plant kingdom: they can admire the plant kingdom, but they project their emotions onto the plant kingdom and therefore cannot penetrate into the depths of the plant kingdom. Tamas is present when a person is wholly devoted to the life of their physicality, dull and apathetic toward what is around them, as dull and apathetic as we are toward another consciousness here on the physical plane. We know nothing of the consciousness of a dog or a horse as long as we remain on the physical plane, not even of the consciousness of another human being. Here the human being is generally dull; here he withdraws, so to speak, into his own physicality; here he is immersed in Tamasic impressions. Human beings must gradually become so dull toward the physical world that they can perceive the spiritual worlds with clairvoyance. This is how the concepts of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas will best reveal themselves to us. In the external natural world, a Rajasic impression would be the impression of a moderately bright surface, not in a bright color, but perhaps green, a uniform green hue. A dark surface with dark colors would be a Tamasic impression. When a person looks out into the utter darkness of outer space, even if the magnificent sight of the open sky presents itself to them, they perceive nothing other than the blue, almost Tamasic color. If we immerse ourselves in the sensations these conceptual definitions evoke, we can apply them to everything around us, not just in one or another specific area. In fact, these ideas are comprehensive. And for the Indian of the Bhagavad Gita era, this means not only a certain understanding of the external world itself, but also a certain enlivening of the human inner core: knowing about the Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas nature of the environment.

[ 4 ] The Indian felt something like this. Let me illustrate this with a comparison: Suppose a simple, primitive person from the countryside looks around at nature—the beauty of the dawn, the beauty of the sun, the stars, everything he can see—but he does not reflect on it; he does not form mental images or concepts about the world; he lives his life, as it were, in the most intimate harmony with his surroundings. When he begins to distinguish himself with his soul from what surrounds him, when he begins to perceive himself as a separate being, then he must achieve this by learning to understand his surroundings through mental images of them, by learning to separate himself from his surroundings. It is always a kind of grasping of the reality of one’s own being when one objectively sets the surroundings aside. The Indian of the Bhagavad Gita era said: As long as one does not see through the Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas states of the environment, one still lives within one’s environment; one is not yet independent in one’s own being; one remains connected to the environment; one has not yet grasped one’s own being. But when one’s surroundings become so objective that one can discern them everywhere—this is a Sattva state, this is a Rajas state, and this is a Tamas state—then one also becomes freer and ever freer from them, and thus more independent in one’s being. Therefore, it is a means to becoming independent to recognize these three states in all of external nature, in everything that exists outside the mind and the human soul. A means to bring about the state of self-awareness is to perceive Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas in everything that surrounds us. And fundamentally, what matters to Krishna is to free Arjuna’s soul from whatever surrounds Arjuna at that particular moment. “Look,” Krishna wants to make clear, “at everything that lives on that bloody battlefield, where brothers face off against brothers. You feel connected to all of this, merged with it, and part of it. Learn to recognize that everything out there unfolds in states of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. Through this, you will set yourself apart from it, distinguish yourself; through this, you will know that you do not belong there with your highest Self; through this, you will experience your unique, separate essence within yourself—you will experience the Spirit within you.”

[ 5 ] This is yet another of the beauties of the Bhagavad Gita’s compositional progression: we are introduced at the beginning to more abstract concepts, but these abstract concepts become increasingly vivid and take on life in the most diverse spheres through the concepts of sattva, rajas, and tamas, and then the separation of Arjuna’s soul takes place, as it were, before our inner eye. Thus Krishna explains to Arjuna that one must detach oneself from all that unfolds within these three states, detach oneself from all that otherwise engulfs and entangles human beings. There are Sattva people who are so interwoven with existence that they cling to the blissful happiness they draw from their surroundings. These Sattva people move through the world in such a way that, through their blissful happiness, they can draw from all things whatever makes them happy. Rajasic people are those who are diligent, who perform actions, but they perform these actions because a good deed or this or that deed has this or that consequence; they cling to the consequences of the deed, they cling to the desire to act, that is, to the impression the deed makes. Tamasic people cling to negligence, comfort, laziness; they actually want to do nothing. — Thus are people divided, and those people whose minds and souls are entangled in external conditions belong to one of these groups. But you are to gain insight into the dawning age of self-awareness; you are to learn to separate your soul; you are to be neither a sattvic person, nor a rajasic person, nor a tamasic person. — Thus, in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is the great teacher of the independent human self, demonstrating the separation of the self from the conditions of the environment. And Krishna also explains to Arjuna certain activities of the soul, proceeding according to the states of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. But when a person directs his faith upward toward those who are the creative divine beings of the world, he is a Sattva person. But precisely in the time when the Bhagavad Gita was written, there were people who, in a sense, knew nothing at all of the leading divine-spiritual beings, who were entirely attached to the so-called nature spirits, to those spirits that stand behind the immediate natural beings: these are the Rajasic people, who reach only as far as the nature spirits. The Tamasic people are those who, in their understanding of the world, arrive at what might be called the ghostly realm, which stands closest to the material in its spiritual aspect.

[ 6 ] Thus, even with regard to religious feeling, human beings can be classified into Sattva-type people, Rajas-type people, and Tamas-type people. In our time, we could say—if we wish to apply these terms to religious feeling— Those who strive toward anthroposophy are Sattva-type people—without flattery. Those who adhere to an external faith are Rajas-type people. And those who believe only in the physical, whether materially or spiritually—the materialists and spiritualists—are Tamas-type believers. The spiritualist does not, after all, demand spiritual beings in whom he wishes to believe. He certainly wants to believe in spirits, but he does not want to ascend to them; he wants them to come down to him—they should knock, because one can hear knocking with physical ears; they should appear in clouds of light, because one can see clouds of light with physical eyes; that is, they should not be spiritual but material in nature. In a certain conscious sense, such people are Tamasic beings. This is entirely in the spirit of the Tamasic people of Krishna’s time. There are also unconscious Tamasic people: these are the materialistic thinkers who deny everything spiritual in our time. A materialistic assembly today convinces itself that it adheres to materialism out of logic. But this is an illusion. Materialists are people who are materialists not for logical reasons, but out of fear of the spirit. Out of fear of the spirit, they deny the spirit, because the logic of the unconscious soul compels them to do so—a logic that pushes upward but cannot pass through the gate of the spirit. It is the fear of the spirit, and anyone who surveys reality can see in a materialist gathering that every materialist harbors a fear of the spirit in the depths of their soul. Materialism is not logic, but cowardice in the face of the spirit. And what it spins out is nothing other than the opiate to numb this fear. In reality, Ahriman, the bringer of fear, sits on the neck of every materialist. It is a grotesque but thoroughly serious truth that one recognizes when one enters a materialistic gathering anywhere. What is the true purpose of such a gathering? The illusion is that people speak of worldviews. In reality, it exists to truly invoke Ahriman, to summon the devil, to lure Ahriman into their chambers.

[ 7 ] Krishna also gives Arjuna this same classification with regard to religious beliefs, but also with regard to the practical way of behaving in prayer toward the gods. One can always characterize a person’s spiritual disposition according to these three states. Sattva, rajas, and tamas individuals differ quite considerably in the way they relate to their gods. The Tamasic people are those who are priests, but whose priesthood arises from a kind of habit; they hold their office but have no living connection with the spiritual world, and therefore repeat “Aum, Aum, Aum,” because this is what first flows forth from the dullness, from the Tamasic state of the mind. The “Aum-sayers” are the Tamasic people in the realm of prayer; they pour out their subjectivity in the Aum. The Rajasic people are those who look upon the environment and already have a sense that this environment is becoming something belonging to them, that this environment must be revered as akin to them. They are the people of “action,” the people who worship the “That,” the universe, as something related to themselves. The Sattva people are those who have an insight into the fact that what lives within is one with what surrounds us in the whole world. They are the people who, in their prayer, have a sense of “Sat,” of the All-Being, of the All-Being and Oneness within and without, who have a sense of the Oneness of the objective and the subjective. That the one who truly wishes to become free with his soul, who does not wish to be merely a Sattva, Rajas, or Tamas person in either sense, must transform these states within himself in such a way that he wears them like a garment, yet outgrows them with his true Self: this is what Krishna says must be attained. This is indeed what Krishna must inspire as the creator of self-consciousness.

[ 8 ] Thus Krishna stands before Arjuna, instructing him: Contemplate all the states of the world; contemplate them with that which is the highest and deepest in man, but become free from the highest and deepest of the three states; become, within yourself, one who grasps oneself; learn to recognize that you can live without feeling connected to rajas, tamas, or sattva; learn! — That is what one had to learn back then; it was the dawn of a new era, the liberation of the Self.

[ 9 ] But even in this realm, what must have required the utmost effort back then can be found on the street today. And the fact that it can be found on the street is, in many ways, the tragedy of life today. Today there are all too many souls who stand in the world yet remain entrenched within themselves, finding no connection with the outside world; who, in their feelings and sensations, in their inner experiences, are lonely souls who feel no connection to a Tamas-, Sattva, or Rajas state, nor are they free from them—souls who are actually thrown into the world like a wheel spinning in despair. These people, who live only within themselves and cannot understand the world, who are unhappy because they are completely separated from all external existence with their souls, represent the shadow side of that fruit that Krishna had to cultivate in Arjuna and all his contemporaries and successors. That which was to become the highest aspiration for Arjuna has become the greatest suffering for many people today. Thus do the successive ages change. And today we must say: We stand at the end of that age which was inaugurated back when the time of the Bhagavad Gita was. This says something very significant for our sense of things. But it also implies that just as in the time of the Bhagavad Gita, those who sought self-awareness were to hear what Krishna said to Arjuna — so too should those who today seek the salvation of their souls, and who stand at the end of this age of self-consciousness in such a way that this self-consciousness has increased within them to the point of pathological intensity, listen to that which in turn leads to an understanding of the three external states. But what leads to an understanding of these external states?

[ 10 ] Let us first establish a few mental images before answering these questions. Let us ask: What does Krishna actually want to be for Arjuna, for the person who, in his time, takes the right stance toward external circumstances? What does Krishna say in a wonderful way, with all divine candor and divine uninhibitedness? With true divine candor and uninhibitedness, Krishna reveals what he wants to be up to this point.

[ 11 ] How, then, could one live in one’s soul? We have described how a pictorial consciousness permeated the souls, how what is today self-consciousness—which people had to strive for back then and which can be found on the streets today—hovered over them, as it were. Let us consider the state of the soul back then, as it was before Krishna ushered in the new age. In this pictorial consciousness, the souls lived within the world, so that the world did not evoke clear concepts and ideas in the souls, but rather images like today’s dream images. A certain pictorial consciousness was the lowest region of the soul’s life, which was illuminated from the higher region—the region of sleep-consciousness—through inspiration. Such was the state of these souls, and then they ascended into the corresponding other states. And this ascent was called—and this is the concrete term—the “becoming one with Brahma.”

[ 12 ] To demand today that a human soul should become one with Brahman—to make such a demand of a human soul living in Western countries—is an anachronism, an absurdity. One might just as well demand of a person standing halfway up a mountain that he climb it in the same way as one who is still down in the valley. One might just as well demand this as if one were to have a Western soul perform Eastern exercises today and merge into Brahma. To do so, one must stand on the level of pictorial consciousness on which, in a certain sense, certain Easterners still stand today. Whoever is a Westerner already possesses in their concepts and ideas what the Bhagavad Gita people found upon ascending into Brahma—the feelings that an Easterner can have upon entering into Brahma. It is truly so: Shankaracharya would still present the world of ideas of Soloviev, Hegel, and Fichte to his reverent disciples as the beginning of the ascent into Brahma. It is not the content that matters, but the effort of the path. Above all, we must put ourselves in the place of those souls who strove for this ascent to Brahma.

[ 13 ] Krishna characterizes this very beautifully by pointing out a key feature of this ascent. One must assume a completely different constitution of mind and soul if one wishes to understand the souls of the Bhagavad Gita era. There, everything is passive; there is an exposure to the world of images; there, everything is like a surrender to the flowing world of images. Compare this with our very different ordinary world. Surrender does not help us to arrive at understanding. However, there are many people who are still clinging to the past, who do not want to ascend to what must happen in our time. But this must happen for our age: we must make an effort, be actively engaged, in order to gain concepts and ideas from the environment. That this is lacking is indeed the tragedy of our education! We must educate our children so that they are actively involved in forming their concepts of the environment. Today, the soul must be more active than it was back then, in the time before the Bhagavad Gita was written. We can write it down like this:

[ 14 ] Bhagavad Gita period = Ascension to Brahma through the passivity of the soul.

[ 15 ] The Age of the Intellect — our age = actively striving upward toward the higher worlds.

[ 16 ] So what did Krishna have to say as he sought to usher in the new age, in which the active pursuit of an understanding of the world was to begin gradually? He had to say: I must come; I must give you, the ego-human, a gift that inspires you to be active. — If all this had remained passive as before, if this surrender to the world had remained a state of entanglement, the new age would not have dawned. Everything in the period before the time of the Bhagavad Gita that is connected with the soul’s penetration into the spiritual worlds, Krishna calls devotion. Everything is devotion to Brahma. He compares all of this to the feminine aspect within the human being. That which is the Self within the human being—the active, dynamic force meant to generate self-awareness, which radiates from within as the source of the self-awareness that is to come—Krishna calls the masculine aspect within the human being. What the human being can attain in Brahma must be fertilized by him, Krishna. This is what Krishna tells Arjuna; he imparts this teaching to Arjuna, as it were: Until now, all human beings have been Brahma-human beings. Brahma is all that which spreads out as the womb of the entire world. But I am the Father who comes into the world to fertilize the womb. And that which arises from this is the self-consciousness that is to continue working within human beings and must come to all people. This is explained with the utmost clarity. Like father and mother, Krishna and Brahma act in the world. And what do they bring about? Together they bring about that which humanity must possess in the further course of its evolution: self-consciousness, that self-consciousness which enables the human being, as an individual entity, to become ever more and more perfect. The Krishna creed has to do entirely with the individual human being, with the individual person. Complete devotion to the Krishna teaching means striving for the perfection of the individual human being. But how can this perfection be achieved? It can only be achieved by allowing this individual self-awareness, this gift from Krishna, to emerge through detachment—through the detachment of the self from everything bound up with external conditions. Turn your attention to this fundamental principle of the Krishna teachings: that the Krishna teachings instruct humanity to to leave behind everything that lives in external conditions, to become free from all “action,” from everything that unfolds as life in its various states, and to take hold only of the Self, in order to carry this Self ever further and further toward higher perfection. Direct your attention to the fact that perfection depends on man leaving behind all external configurations of things, on his peeling himself away from the whole of external life, on his becoming free and ever more alive within himself. The pursuit of self-awareness, as taught by Krishna, arises from a person breaking free from their surroundings, no longer asking what is being perfected outside, but rather how they themselves should become perfected.

[ 17 ] Krishna—that is, the spirit working through Krishna—appeared once again in the boy Jesus of Luke, from the Nathanic line of the House of David. In this personality, therefore, lay essentially all the impulses necessary for humanity to become self-sufficient and to detach itself from external reality. What, then, did Krishna—or, let us say, this soul that had not entered human evolution, which worked through Krishna and then through the boy Jesus of Luke—what did it actually want? It had to experience that it once had to remain outside of human development because the adversary had come, Lucifer, who said: “Your eyes will be opened, and you will distinguish between good and evil and will be like God.” In the ancient Indian sense, Lucifer stood before humanity and said: “You will be like the gods and will be able to find the sattva, rajas, and tamas states in the world.” — Lucifer directed humanity toward the external world. Thus, at Lucifer’s instigation, humanity had to come to know the external world; thus, they had to pass through evolution all the way into the Christ era. Then came the one who had once stepped back from Lucifer, in Krishna and in the boy Jesus of Luke. In two stages, he now taught what was to be, from one side, the antithesis to Lucifer’s teaching of paradise. He wanted to open your eyes to the Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas states. Close your eyes to the Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas states: then you will find yourselves as human beings, as self-aware human beings. — Thus, for us, imagination appears: on the one hand, the imagination of paradise, where Lucifer opens people’s eyes to the Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas states, and the one who is Lucifer’s opponent withdraws for a while. Then human beings undergo a development and reach the point where, in two stages, a different teaching of self-awareness comes to meet them, but in such a way that they are to close their eyes to the Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas states. Both are one-sided teachings. Had only the Krishna-Jesus influence remained—that which lived in Luke’s Jesus as a boy—then one one-sidedness would have merely been replaced by another; then humanity would have turned its back on everything surrounding it, lost all interest even in external development, and each person would have sought only their own perfection on Earth. The striving for perfection is right, but the striving that comes at the cost of indifference toward all of humanity is a one-sidedness, just as the Luciferic was a one-sidedness. Therefore, the all-encompassing force stepped in—the Christ impulse, the higher synthesis of both one-sidednesses. In the person of the boy Jesus of Luke himself, the Christ impulse lived for three years, having come into humanity to bring these two one-sidednesses together. Through these two one-sidednesses, humanity would have fallen into weakness and sin: through Lucifer, it would have been condemned to a one-sided life in the outer states of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas; through Krishna, it was to be trained for the other one-sidedness: to close its eyes and seek only its own perfection. Christ took upon himself the sin; he gave humanity that which balances the two one-sidednesses. He took upon himself the sin of self-consciousness that sought to close its eyes to the outer world; he took upon himself the sin of Krishna and of all who sought to commit Krishna’s sin. He took upon himself the sin of Lucifer and of all who sought to commit it by fixing their gaze one-sidedly on Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. By taking these one-sidednesses upon himself, he gives humanity the opportunity to gradually find harmony once more between the inner and outer worlds, in which harmony alone the salvation of humanity is to be found.

[ 18 ] But a process of development that has begun cannot come to an end immediately. The development toward self-consciousness, which began with Krishna, has continued, steadily increasing self-consciousness while at the same time causing ever greater alienation from the external world. This development has a tendency to go further and further, even in our time. At the time when the Krishna impulse was taken up by the boy Jesus of Luke, humanity was in the very midst of this development, increasing self-consciousness ever more, alienating itself from the external world ever more. That was what the people experienced who received John’s baptism in the Jordan. They saw how self-consciousness was on the path to becoming stronger and stronger. That is why they understood the Baptist when he spoke to them about it: “Change your minds; do not merely walk the Krishna path.” — Even if he did not use the word: we can call this path, which was embarked upon at that time, the Jesus path, if we wish to speak in occult terms. And this mere Jesus path has indeed continued further and further through the centuries; for in many areas of human cultural life in the centuries following the founding of Christianity, there was only a reference to Jesus, not to the Christ who lived within Jesus for three years, from the baptism by John to the Mystery of Golgotha. But every line of development drives itself to a certain tension. This longing for individual perfection was increasingly driven to the point that people, in a certain sense, fell into tragedy, becoming more and more estranged from the divinity of nature, from the external world. Today, indeed, we often see this tragedy of alienation from our surroundings to such an extent that many souls walk among us who no longer understand much of it. That is why, especially in our time, an understanding of the Christ impulse must take hold: the Christ path must be added to the Jesus path. The path of the one-sided striving for perfection had become too strong. It is only in our time that people are, in many respects, completely estranged from the divinity of their surroundings. Because whenever one direction emerges, it immediately becomes excessive, and the longing for the opposite awakens; in our time, many souls feel how little human beings today can step out of their heightened self-consciousness. This generates the urge to recognize the divinity of the external world. And in our time, it is precisely such souls who will seek the understanding of the Christ impulse opened up by true anthroposophy—the Christ impulse that seeks not merely the one-sided perfection of the individual human soul, but that of all humanity, belonging to the entire human process. To understand the Christ impulse means not merely striving for perfection, but also taking into oneself something that is truly captured by the words of Paul: “Not I, but Christ in me.” “I” is the word of Krishna; “Not I, but Christ in me” is the word of the Christian impulse. Thus we see how every human spiritual current has its own certain justification. No one can imagine that the Krishna impulse could have been absent, but no one should ever think that any single human spiritual current, in its one-sidedness, has full justification. The two one-sided currents—the Luciferic and the Krishna current—had to find their unity, in a higher sense, in the Christ current.

[ 19 ] Anyone who wishes to understand, in a truly anthroposophical sense, what must prevail today as a necessary impulse for the further development of humanity must see in anthroposophy the instrument that can shed light on all religions. In this lecture series as well, we have sought to show how human evolution proceeds and how the various currents contribute to this common evolution. It would be an amateurish approach for someone to try to find in Krishnaism what is found in Christianity. Viewed in this light, one begins to understand these things, to grasp what it means to seek unity in all religions. One can also approach this in another way. One can repeatedly declare: The same fundamental essence is contained in all religions. — That would mean the same as saying: the same fundamental essence is contained in the root, in the trunk, in the leaves, in the blossoms, in the stamens, and in the fruit. — That is true, but it is an abstract truth. It is no more insightful than saying: Why do we need differences? Salt, pepper, vinegar, milk—it’s all on the table; everything is one, for everything is matter. — There one immediately perceives the abstract, inadequate nature of such a perspective. But one does not perceive this immediately in the realm of comparative religion. It is not possible to compare Chinese, Brahmanic, Krishna, Buddhist, Persian, Mohammedan, and Christian traditions in such an abstract way, to say: “Look, the same principles everywhere, a savior everywhere!” One can seek abstract things everywhere: it is amateurish because it is fruitless. One can found societies and associations for the sake of life, in which one demonstrates the study of all religions and then conducts that study as if someone were to say: Pepper, salt, vinegar, and oil are one, because they are on the table, because they are all matter. — That is not the point. The point is that one must view things in their truth, in their reality. To a way of looking at things that descends so far into occult dilettantism that it repeatedly proclaims the equality of all religions, it may as well be irrelevant whether what lives in the Christ impulse is the focal point of human development, or whether it reappears in some person one happens to encounter on the street or elsewhere. But for those who wish to live out of the truth, it is an abomination to associate anything else with that impulse in world history which is linked to the Mystery of Golgotha and for which the name of Christ has been preserved as what it truly is: the center of Earth’s evolution.

[ 20 ] In these lectures, I have attempted to present a picture to you using a specific example; I have sought to demonstrate through this example how contemporary occultism strives to shed light on the various spiritual currents that have arisen in the course of human evolution—currents each of which has a legitimate point of departure, but which must be distinguished from one another just as one must distinguish the stem from the green leaf, and the green leaf from the colored petal, even though all of these together again form a unity. When one attempts, with this truly modern occultism, to penetrate with one’s own soul into that which has flowed into humanity through the various currents, then one recognizes that the individual religious creeds truly lose nothing in the process—nothing of their greatness, nothing of their sublimity. What sublime greatness has met us in the figure of Krishna, even where we have sought only to place him within the course of human evolution in the sense of a concrete grasp of that evolution! Every such contemplation, which can be presented only in sketch form, is imperfect enough—certainly quite, quite imperfect. But you may be assured that no one is more convinced of the imperfection of what has been presented here than the one who has taken the liberty of speaking before you here. But what has been sought is to show you a little of how true contemplation of the individual spiritual currents of humanity must take place. I specifically sought to take up a spiritual work foreign to us, the Bhagavad Gita, in order to show how Western man can already sense and feel what he owes to Krishna, what Krishna still means today as an aftereffect for his striving in the world. But on the other hand, the spiritual orientation represented here must demand that one lovingly engage with the distinct character of each current in a very concrete way. This entails a certain discomfort, for it brings one all too close to the humble realization of how little one actually penetrates these depths. And yet another idea follows in our soul as well: that we must strive ever onward. Both are discomforts! The spiritual current known here as anthroposophy causes certain discomforts for many souls—it is fated to do so. It demands an energetic engagement with the concrete facts of world events, but at the same time it also requires that one say to oneself in one’s soul: I can indeed reach higher things, I also want to get there, but I have only ever reached a certain point; I must strive further and further. Never an end!

[ 21 ] So it has always been associated with a certain discomfort to belong to that spiritual movement which, through us, seeks to immerse itself in what is called anthroposophical life. It was, after all, inconvenient that one was supposed to learn to strive—indeed, was required to strive—even with us, in order to finally arrive at the point of looking ever deeper and deeper into the sacred mysteries. But we could not offer something so convenient, which would have resulted if we had taken some son or daughter, presented them, and said: You need only wait: in this son or this “daughter, salvation will appear physically embodied.” — We could not do that; it really was not possible, for we had to be truthful. And yet, for those who see through the matter, everything that has ultimately come to light is merely the final, grotesque consequence of that amateurish comparison of religions, which is so conveniently presented and which always appears with such self-evidence, with the utmost triviality: All religions contain the same thing!

[ 22 ] The past weeks and months have shown, after all—and the fact that I was able to speak to you here about such a significant topic has demonstrated this anew—that there is indeed a circle of people today who, when it matters, seek spiritual truths. Nothing else will matter to us but upholding these spiritual truths. Whether many or all of us fall away, that will not change the way in which spiritual truths are upheld here. The sacred obligation to truth will guide and direct the current from which this cycle has also been held. And whoever wishes to participate must do so under the conditions that have now become necessary. It is, however, more comfortable to proceed in a different way, not to engage with the other side as we do, by truly drawing attention to everything as it is in reality. But that, too, is part of the obligation to truth. It is easier to tell people about the equality of religions, the unity of religions, to proclaim to them that they should wait until a Savior incarnates—one who is predestined, whom they are not to recognize of their own accord but on the basis of authority. But the human souls of the present will have to decide for themselves to what extent pure devotion to the pursuit of truthfulness can sustain and carry a spiritual current. That sharp division had to occur once in our time, brought about by the fact that the President ultimately exposed herself to the extent of labeling those who wanted nothing more than to stand up for what is true and genuine in human evolution out of a commitment to truth as Jesuits. This, too, has been a convenient way to part ways, but it has been the outward documentation of working with objective untruth. That we have not worked within a one-sided ideological framework—this lecture series may also have shown you that once again—taking to heart the present, the past, and the distant past, in order to be able to point to the true, sole fundamental impulse of human evolution. So I may well say here, too, how it fills me—who have been permitted to give this series—with the deepest satisfaction that there is hope—and the fact that you are sitting here is proof of this—to still find human souls who have the impulse, the inclination, the orientation toward that which, even in the supersensible realm, works with nothing other than sheer, honest truthfulness.

[ 23 ] I feel compelled to add these closing remarks to the lecture series, because it is, after all, necessary in light of everything we have faced over the years up to the point when we were expelled from the Theosophical Society. In light of everything that has been done to us and which is now being distorted into its opposite in numerous pamphlets, I had to express this, although discussing these matters always affects me with extraordinary pain. But it is necessary that those who wish to work with us know that our motto is: an unconditional, modest, yet honest pursuit of truth upward into the higher worlds.